v v 










































k *' 

























\' v ^ , 



J 



W" 











































•%. 


^ 










St 












■ 



a> •** 













"And there's the corn around us, and the 
lispin' leaves and trees. "• 



. - / . i c-\ iHH^nilt. 






-^ 






X 







- J rose 










:F^rr^vl—r— ^ 



. 








-. 




M 




'And it mottled the water with amber 
and gold/' 



FAG-SIMILE OS" A STANZA IN RILEY'S HANDWRITING. 







, t ,m. 



^4 " 



jvn rosewicl J kture 








Chicago 

HANDY & HIGGINS 

1903 



I, 
1903 

ICLAs* O. YVn. Mo. 
L \* * I Q 



.fit 



u 



* • ' 

. • . I < ' ' ' ' 




^PT"^> 



SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED 
OCTOBCR I, I903 



PRESS OF ROBT. O. LAW CO. 



2 ?(° 






Illustrations* 



PAGE 

"And there's the ccrn around us, and the lispin* 
leaves and tr ees" 5 

"And it mottled the water with amber and 
gold" 9 

James "Whitcomb Riley .* 10 

A bit of Greenfield IS 

"The bridge of the railroad now covers the spot 
where the old divin'-log lays lunk and 
forgot" 25 

Riley's home in Greenfield ... 27 

"There the bull rushes growed" 29 

"Green woods and clear skies and unwrit poetry 
by the cave" 3J 

"In the green, grassy lap of the medder" 33 

The Old Swimmin' Hole, "when the crick so 
still and deep looked like a baby river that 
was lying half asleep" 37 

The New Generation in Greenfield, "they's 
room for the children to play and to grow" 4J 













fO 



K 



ILLUSTRATIONS - Continued. 

Mayor George Carr, of Greenfield, one of Riley's 
early friends 43 

Riley's boyhood home in Greenfield 45 

John Davis, one of Riley's boyhood friends- ... 47 

"How peasant the journey down the old dusty 
lane" 

Sign painted by Riley now in use in a Greenfield 
bank 55 

Main Street, Greenfield 57 

A masterpiece by Riley 59 

Old Masonic Hall, scene of Riley's early theat- 
rical efforts ... 61 

The Morris Pierson homestead where Riley 
wrote some of his early verse 65 

"Where the cows slept on the cold, dewy grass" 67 

"'Way back in the airly days" 69 

"/jpne husky, rusty russel of the tassels of the 
/^orn" „. . ./?. 71 





"Timber thick enugh to sorto' shade the crick*' 75 



The 



swimming hole 77 



VkV. i 

m 





ILLUSTRATIONS-CWmuec/. 






^ 



"With tangled tops whare dead leaves shakes". 81 

Thomas Carr,"Tuba Tom" of the "New Band" 83 

"And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all" 85 

"Tell of the old log house— about the loft and 
the puncheon floor—" 87 



The "New Band' 



83 



''And rag weed and fennel and grass is as sweet 
as the scent of the lilies of Eden of old" ... 89 

"He jest natcherly pined, night and day, fer a 
sight of the woods, ev a acre of ground 
whare the trees wasent all cleared away". 91 

Pen and Ink Sketch of Riley 93 

Elmer Swope, an early acquaintance of Riley . . 95 

Riley in 1888 96 









A bit of Greenfield, 



Contents* 



K 



A Welcome to Riley, PAGE 
By Frank L # Stanton 2\ 

Riley: the Poet and Man 23 

"As us boys ust to be " 35 

44 Yd ruther work when I wanted to 

than be bossed round by others" 5 \ 

44 Tel now it's Fame 'at writes your 

name" 63 

"Writ from the hart out" 79 

44 Fer forty years and better you have 

been a friend to me " 93 



Q > 



n 



§ 




elcome to Riley 



Jim Riley— he's a-comin' to Atlanta, so they say, 
An' we hear our hearts a-hummin' as they meet 

him on the way ; 
For who ain't heard o' Riley— Jim Riley o' the 

West, 
An' loved his song until they long to tell him 

" He's the best!" 

When a feller gets to readin' him, it's half a laugh 

an' sigh, 
A-heavin' o' the heartstrings, an' a-waterin' o' the 

eye; 
An' you dream in velvet valleys, an' you wade in 

dewy grass, 
While your soul takes in the twanglin' of the 

doves' wings as they pass. 

The world takes on more color ; the springtime is 
more sweet, 

An' the dear *' old-fashioned roses " seem to blos- 
som at your feet ; 

An' you hear the farm boy singin' at the ox-team 
that he drives. 

While the buzzin' bees are bringin' all the honey to 
the hives ! 

So, let him come— Jim Riley, an' let him take this 

song 
Of one he knows, a wind-blown rose from them 

who've loved him long ; 
Jes' take it as a welcome, an' wear it in his breast 
Until we look him in the face an' tell him " He's 

the best!" 

—Frank L. Stanton* 



v 



h 



ft 



^ 




( 






Riley: the Poet and Man 



HE unhappy subject of this 
sketch was torn so long ago 
that he persists in never 
referring to the date* Citi- 
zens of his native town of 
Greenfield, Ind., while warmly welcom- 
ing his advent, were no less demonstra- 
tive some few years since to * speed the 
parting guest/ It seems in fact that as 
they came to know him better the more 
resigned they were to give him up* He 
was ill-starred from the cradle, it appears* 
One day while but a toddler he climbed, 
unseen, to an open window where some 
potted flowers were ranged and while 
leaning from his high chair far out to 
catch some dainty gilded butterfly, per- 
chance, he lost his foothold and with a 
piercing shriek, fell headlong to the grav- 
eled walk below and when, an instant 
later, the affrighted parents picked him 
up — he was a poet/' 

In this humorous, characteristic para- 
graph James Whitcomb Riley has de- 




r\ 










scribed himself. Like most men who 
undertake their own lives in a sentence, 
he has sacrificed a few truths for the sake 
of humor — a not astounding circumstance 
in the case of Riley who refused to look 
on life as a serious struggle. 

44 Unhappy n he has not been. u Ill- 
starred" he certainly was not. Greenfield, 
far from "speeding the parting guest" has 
proven false the declaration concerning 
the prophet and his own country. He 
never has been given up. He has no 
more sincere admirers, no warmer friends 
than the citizens of his native town. 

Yet in this paragraph one may see a 
bit reflecting the irresponsibility of his 
early life ; of the instability, which pre- 
vented him from becoming a village 
tradesman because he was to be a great 
poet; of the humor which rivals the 
pathos in his poems. 

If James Whitcomb Riley had not 
been intended to be a poet who should 









,■*$'' 



V-'-'o 









£# 



it* 



*' The bridge of the railroad now covers the spot 
** Where the old divine-log lays lunk and forgot." 





reach the hearts of men, he probably 
would have been the good natured vil- 
lage grocery wit whose stories held sym- 
pathetic audiences through long winter 
evenings, whose sayings would have been 
repeated with laughter by his towns peo- 
ple, whose happy, shiftless life would have 
caused many wiseacres to shake their 
heads and say: 

"If Jim Riley'd only work he'd make 
his mark, but you can't get him to work." 

He might have been the soft hearted 
Rip Van Winkle of a little Indiana town, 
a man whose efforts were ready in behalf 
of a friend and slothful for self interest; 
the man about whom the children would 
cluster and concerning whom the house- 
wives would shake their heads* 

After his successful poems had placed 
him in the front rank of American poets 
who find their themes in the lives of the 
humble there arose many to declare that 
what was gained by poetry was lost by 
the stage ; that James Whitcomb Riley 
would have put his name alongside 





Booth's if he 
Longfellow's. 

This, however, was a discovery made 
after the poet had attained his mark of 
fame. Every circumstance of his early 
life pointed to a career of unprofitable, 
unstable, kindly, joyous local brilliance. 

Fate had marked Riley as a poet. 
Circumstance was endeavoring to make 
him fit in the business life of a small 
country town. And he wouldn't fit. 
Accordingly he appeared as unstable. 

He was the son of erratic father, if 
local tradition may be accepted as trust- 
worthy. Reuben Riley was a brilliant 
lawyer, but it is still said of him that any 
time he u would leave a law suit to carve 
an ax handle." Riley's mother was not 
a strong woman physically and had the 
care of five children. 

The father's ambition was that the 




boy should succeed him in law. The 
boy's ambition was to play the banjo and 
the drum. The father had his way f ^r a 
time and the boy realized his desire later. 

The boy would rather fish than sit in 
the little red school house. He preferred 
the dusty roads and the sweet smelling 
grass of the fields to the text books. 
Later in life he chose the wandering life 
of a strolling musician and the tramp ex- 
istance of a traveling sign painter to the 
tedium of humdrum village work. 

As a boy you may see him getting 
close to the poetry of things which lay 
about him, the poetry of fields of corn, of 
farm houses, of river and ford, the poetry 
of the unheroic as judged by the standards 
of poetic heroism. 

You may imagine the boy filled with 
the unrest which comes from poetic feel- 
ing without the ability of poetic expres^ 
sion, feeling the poetry of the corn 
ing in the heat, of the bees itrjh&v 
clover, of the cows knee deep in- 
of the river cool in the shade, 



if 





There the bull rushes growed/ 




hanging willows. This unrest would be 
sufficient to make him unstable as a work- 
tan in any line offered by the small town. 
It is small wonder that he worked fitfully 
as he grew into young manhood. It is 
less wonder that he was found beating a 
drum at the tail end of a medicine seller's 
organization of musicians. It was just 
Riley's protest against being fitted into 
the life which did not belong to him and 
could not be made his. 

"When his triumph came it did not 
come with a rush. The story of his suc- 
cess is a story of long effort and disap- 
pointment. A genius was not discovered 
with Riley's first poem. A group of per- 
simmon trees is pointed out to the visitor 
in Greenfield. Under these trees, it is said, 
Riley wrote his first verses. That was in 
the early days when efforts to express 
were struggling with feeling. 

These poems came into a world which 
heeded them little. Rejected by magazine 
editors and publishers some of them met 
an untimely end. Others found their 






*f 



>j-r 



«*( 





^W^/& 



* Green woods and clear skies 
'And imwrit poetry by the cave.' 






^l2> 






%f1 



\;4 



$0 
way into the u poet*s corner " of a little 
country paper, which as Riley has said/" 
44 did not long survive the blow/' Ari- 
\^ther paper in another town was found 
to furnish a vehicle of placing the verses 
before the public— a limited and not 
always enthusiastic public. 

It was this public which aroused Riley 
to the effort which put him on the road 
to fame. 

44 Why don't the magazines take your 
poems if they are so good ? " asked por- 
tions of the public. 

44 Jim n set his mouth firmly and de- 
clared that his poetry was good, as good 
as that which had made men eternally 
famous* The H Leonainie " poem was 
the result — the Poe-poem which was 
greeted as a long lost song of the great 
writer of mystics. It is said to have cost 
Riley his position on the Anderson paper 
with which he was employed but that is 
more than likely a gentle fiction built to 
cover another reason. 

Riley did lose his position but he was 
taken to Indianapolis where he and his 
poetry soon received the first genuine rec- 
ognition. Since the publication of the 
44 Old Swimmin' Hole and Eleven More 
Poems/' his place in American literature 
has been recognized. 

Ask the care worn man who sits down 
to forget his troubles over a volume of 
poetry that takes him back to his bare 
foot days who is the American poet. 

Ask the man who has the still un- 
healed wound which a child's death has 
left in his breast. 

Ask the man who feels that the latter 
days of his life have not realized th.t 
promise of his earlier years. 

Ask the man who can remember his 






In the green, grassy lap of the medder/ 

own small town and the creek and the 
swimmingf hole* 

Ask the man who retains even the 
smallest bit of youthful sentiment in his 
breast. 

Riley has given them their own lives, 
their own feelings, their own thoughts, 
the things they felt and understood and 
could not express* His reputation does 
not rest only on his humor* His songs in 
the purest English would have made him 
if he never had used the Hoosier dialect* 
His pathos and sentiment would have 
given him his name if he never had drawn 
laughter with his wit and humor. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes once classed 
Riley as a later Hosea Biglow, quite as 
original and more versatile* Dr* Holmes 
owned to a " great deal of enthusiasm for 
this later production of Indiana soil, this 
delineator of lowly humanity, who sings 



with so much fervor, pathos humor and 
grace." 

Riley puts his finger on spots in the 
heart of humanity which may have been 
untouched for years in the struggle of the 
world but which confess their existence 
as he reaches them. Poets have been 
more analytical, more mystical, more 
emotional, more dramatic, more heroic 
but none has been more human. 

It is on the last quality that Riley may 
be placed as the great American poet — 
the distinctively American poet, the poet 
of a dialect which is becoming extinct but 
which will never be unintelligible, the 
poet of pathos and humor which are 
essentially human and therefor eternal. 



V- 




h 





"As us boys ust to be; 




|EW poets have been so essen- 
tially local as Riley in sub- 
jects and treatment* Burns 
was and that fact may ac- 
count for the frequent com- 
parison of one man with the other* Few 
poets have reflected their early lives, sur- 
roundings and associates so completely as 
the Indiana writer* 

Riley was born in Greenfield, Indiana* 
in 1852* the second son of Reuben A. 
Riley, an attorney* His parents gave 
him the name of James Whitcombbwjiic 
the townspeople changed to "JmT w 
soon as the tow headed boy appeared o 
the streets of the small town and be- 
came known* 

At this time it was a small village* 
At the time of Riley's young manhood it 




£ 



K 



L 







s 




was a town of J,200 inhabit*^ 1 ^Ths: 
national road from Washington to St. 
Louis passed through it and it was in a 
small cottage facing this thoroughfare^ 
that the poet was born. 

His father, without regard to what 
fate had in store for the t oy had ordained 
that he was destined for law. The rebel- 
lion came and the father recruited a com- 
pany for the Eighth Indiana infantry in 
which he was commissioned as captain. 
After the three months' service for which 
the company had been raised Mr. Riley 
re-enlisted for three years in the Fifth In- 
diana cavalry. 

When he came back to Greenfield, 
James Whitcomb, his son and successor- 
to-be in legal practice, was a rapidly 
growing boy with a tendency to be out 
of buttons constantly and with a further 
tendency to escape from the school house 
and spend the day lolling on the banks 
of the Brandywine with a fishing pole 
44 set " on a stone. The same boy had a 
capacity for chewing tobacco which was 
the admiration of his associates. 

44 Tired 'o fishin' — tired 'o fun — line out slack and 

slacker — 
"All you want in all the world's a little more to- 

backer." 

His life was the life of every boy in a 
small middle west town. It is because he 
has portrayed this and because his reader 
discovers himself in the portrayal that he 
has reached the multitudes. 

He had the swimming hole that every 
American boy has found. He hunted the 
fields for bees' nests. He risked the wrath 
of hornets, poking down their homes for 
the excitement of the wild scamper when 
the ruin had been accomplished. He 
^hunted " chiprnunjss." He indulged sur- 



^ 




^. 



■■:yutil}f. 








*3 
a 









w 
o 



M 



en 



'43 * 
OJQ 

h-l vTJ rt ft) 

»£3 Q 



Pi 



tfWfc *&k 



J§8t 




( 






reptitiously in the joys of corn silk cigar- 
ettes. He raided orchards* 

He was a small tow headed boy, with, 
as has been said, few buttons and many 
pins to hold his clothes together. There 
is a legend prevailing in Greenfield which 
jars the swimming hole devotion which 
Riley is supposed to have nourished. It 
is related that the boy seldom went in the 
water with the other youngsters, but pre- 
ferred to sit on the bank of the Brandy- 
wine and watch their antics in the water. 

The mother of a Greenfield hopeful, 
receiving her son one evening when his 
hair still was wet from the swimming 
hole, noticed that Jim evidently had not 
been in the water. 

"Jim," she said, " Why don't you go 
in swimming with the other boys ? " 

"Well, I'll tell you/' said the boy 
slowly, u I ain't got many buttons on my 
clothes and I'm ashamed to take out all 
these pins when the other boys is look- 
ing." 

That story, no doubt, is apocryphal. 
His mother was burdened with many 





fpw 



y 



f\ 



cares, but it is doubtful if she neglected 
"Jim's" buttons. 

Whether Riley was or was not a de- 
votee of the swimming hole is an imma- 
terial matter* He caught the spirit of it 
at least. Greenfield now relates this old- 
time conversation with the idea of show- 
ing that Riley had more than the aver- 
age boy's abandon in matters of dress. 

It would have been disconcerting to 
the father if he had known his son's am- 
bitions* Instead of longing for legal fame 
Jim wanted to be a baker. That was his 
first feverish ambition. 

" That seemed to my childish mind to 
be the acme of delight," he said on one 
occasion, u to be able to manufacture those 
snowy loaves of bread, those delicious 
tarts, those toothsome bonbons. And 
then to own them all, to keep them in a 
store, to watch over them and carefully 
exhibit them. The thought of obtaining 
money from the sale of them was a sac- 
rilege to me. Sell them? No indeed. 
Eat them ; eat them by the tray load and 
dray load. It was a great wonder with 
me why the pale faced baker in our town 



Jn 








did not eat all his good things. This I 
determined to do when I became master 
of such a grand establishment. Yes, sir ; 
I would have a glorious feast. Maybe 
Yd have Tom and Harry and perhaps 
little Kate and Florry in to help us once 
in a while. I have a sweet tooth today ." 

Some one some day will analyze the 
ambitions of childhood and it will be 
found that the earliest ones are connected 
with some thing to eat and the next with 
the idea of killing things. 

Riley's ambition which followed the 
bun and cake one, was to beat the snare 
drum in a military band. This was not 
an ambition to be killing something but 
it was warlike. He wanted to dangle his 
legs over the tailboard of a band wagon 
and play the drum. He did not envy the 
man who puffed out his cheeks in a strug- 
gle with the trombone. He envied the 
snare drummer. 

The baker ambition was destined 






THE NEW GENERATION IN GREEN- 
FIELD. 
" They's room for the children to play and to 
grow." 



<**«*& 




never to be realized. The snare drum, 
however, did enter into Riley's life later 
in years. He had other dreams. He 
wanted to be a showman — the man who 
drove ahead of the circus parade in a httle 
wagon. If he should fail in this ambition 
he wanted to be the man who drove the 
horses of the lion's cage. If possible, he 
wanted to own the golden chariots, the 
big tents, the beautiful horses for the 
beautiful princesses and the red lemonade 
which the circus men sold. 

Then again, if fortune failed him and 
he could not be the man who owned the 
circus or the man who drove the lion's 
wagon he wanted to be a clown or a bare- 
back rider. He would be the funniest 
clown that ever lived. 

There was a result to this dream. 
He, with George Carr, now Mayor of 
Greenfield, organized a theatrical troupe 
and gave matinee performances in the 
"Doc" Hall barn. The admission was 
twenty-five pins and Riley was extremely 
cautious about the box office receipts. 

Mayor Carr declares that if a boy ap- 





MAYOR GEORGE CARR, 

of Greenfield. 

One of Riley's early friends. 




plied for » adm*sstofVJ#i£h twenty-four 
stfaighV^4ns/^i<i Qi)e bent one Riley im- 
mediately senrhim home for a straight 
one in place of the crooked. 

44 Riley said they couldn't work off 
any bad money on him," said Mr, Carr. 

These performances were highly suc- 
cessful both from a financial and an ar- 
tistic viewpoint* Riley had a bent to- 
wards the stage, which was gratified 
amateurishly later in life, and his youth- 
ful show career was phenomenal. 

At the close of the season the treasury 
was found to contain three quarts of pins. 
Another partner having been taken 
the show business these pins were divided 
equally and the company disbanded* 

After the circus ambition had faded 
away with the baker dream, Riley de- 
cided to become a great artist* He would 
be modest at first. House painting would 
afford a start and after that he would 
paint portraits. An uncle was an artist 








Riley's boyhood home in Greenfield. 




t- 



fk 



D 



s 



and this fact probably accounts for 
desire to be a painter 

To lay a foundation for his future 
success he pounded several bricks to a red 
dust from which he made a paste. Then 
he went to work. He drew pictures of 
everything and everybody with whom he 
came in contact. For canvasses he used 
the neighbors' fences and barns. These 
good people, finding their premises fan- 
tastically decorated, discovered the artist 
and reported his progress to his father. 

Their complaints fell on willing soil. 
Mr. Riley had observed with pain that 
his own barn and fences were at the 
mercy of some unknown genius whose 
thoughts found expression in red brick 
paste, smeared in quaint designs, and he 
had longed to become acquainted with the 
artist. The fact that portraits, which 
might have passed without recognition 
had it not been for the legends beneath 
them, were among the designs, added to 
the general displeasure of the community. 
Jim's artistic career came to an untimely 
end. 

In young Riley's days there was no 
disposition to spoil the child by sparing 
the rod. The latter was selected for wear- 
ing qualities. A ramrod was a favorite 
weapon of fathers in the neighborhood, 
there being a plentiful supply of these 
instruments after the war. 

Riley and Carr had converted a hay 
rick into a robbers' castle on one occasion 
by excavating a cave, carefully hidden 
in the hay. To this den they dragged 
their booty, generally something edible 
from the surrounding farms. Can's 
grandfather had a field of cantaloupes in 
which he took great pride. This was a 
favorite raiding ground for the bandits. 




\\ 



''ItL 




JOHN DAVIS, 
One of Riley's boyhood friends. 






fm^ 




One afternoon the two Ha 
themselves in their cave with tneir arms 
full of melons/wheji^hexi^^ a. dreaded 
voice, calling : 

"George, George*" 

The tone was stern and forbidding. 
Riley arose to the occasion with a bit of 
strategy* 

"You stay in here," he whispered to 
Carr. u Maybe he only saw me* I'll get 
out and dig and you can stay till he goes 
away*" 

The unsuspecting Carr consented to 
this arrangement. Riley prepared for a 
dash for liberty. Mr. Carr, the elder, 
ramrod ready, was guarding the opening 
to the rick. As Riley scampered out he 
received one cut which raised a welt. 
Carr was left to face the music, alone and 
unsupported. While the other bandit 
raced across the fields at an accelerated 
pace, Grandfather Carr reached within 
the rick and dragged forth the other re- 
luctant highwayman. 

Thereupon it became appar^eja^th 





^n. 



M 



n 



if* 



Riley had chosen the part of wisdom in 
making the first dash for freedom* The 
second victim remained to sustain the 
burden of the punishment* 

There was little in Riley's boyhood to 
make it different from the lives of his 
chums — little if anything. What there 
was to mark him as unlike the others was 
not thought to be to his advantage* He 
quit school altogether at the age of fif- 
teen* 

One of his first teachers* Lee O* Har- 
ris* himself a writer of verses, has declared 
that the poet's old text books will show 
that not all of his time in school was 
given to study* Their margins and fly 
leaves were covered with the figures 
drawn to illustrate the visions which 
filled his head. His teachers have ad- 
mitted their inability to guide the boy 
peacefully in mathematics and grammar* 
It was his voracious reading in after life 
that equipped Riley with essentials he 
failed to grasp in his schooling. 



f\ 



Wi'l/' 






ognized in swaddling clothes and poets ' 
are not discovered in tow headed boys 
who have ambitions, go swimming, and 
raid melon beds* What there is of value 
in Riley's boyhood is that he was absorb- 
ing the atmosphere in these days which 
gave the world his poems later* That 
was the difference between his and his 
playments. Riley found instinctively 
the true beauty of fields and forest. 

This sense of the beautiful and the 
artistic must have made his boyhood 
happier even than the happy lot of the 
average boy who is free to discard his 
shoes and ease his feet in the grass of a 
country field. Riley's sense of this beauty 
never deserted him. It became the key- 
note of his future work. 

" Ho ! I'm going back to where 

u We were youngsters. Meet me there. 

" Dear old chum, and we 

" Will be as we used to be." 







"I'd ruther work when I 

wanted to than be 

bossed round by 

others/ f 




Riley grew to manhood it 
would have puzzled his 
friends to name his probable 
occupation later in life* He 
had realized one of his am- 
bitions* He could beat the drum and play 
the banjo* He was well started towards 
the realization of another* He could 
paint signs* He had been writing verses* 
as will be told later* but it is doubtful if 
even he saw a livlihood in that art just at 
that time* 

From association with John Keefer, a 
painter in Greenfield, Riley had learned 
to paint advertising signs* The young 
man might have continued in this occu- 
pation and might have made himself 









\cx 



comfortable in life through'his labor with 
the brush. -*?% 

His apprenticeship in the business v/tfnf'jii 









^ 



medicines — the era which has resulted in 
the decoration of the country from one 
coast to the other with daubs against 
which lovers of natural beauty and civic 
lonliness have cried in vain* 

There is every reason to believe that 
if Riley had not been a poet he would 
have been a sign painter. Greenfield 
today is full of his handiwork. Signs 
which bear the name " Riley " are proudly 
cherished by their owners. Many of them 
are in use now. 

The sign painting period is not one 
which the poet is particularly anxious to 
be remembered. Especially is not that 
period which includes his experiences as 
the blind sign painter." 

Riley's mother had been an invalid 
and Riley had decided that his own health 
depended on his not engaging in confin- 
ing labor. That is the reason he gave 
at the time to explain his undoubted pro- 
pensity for tramp life. He had left Green- 
field on one occasion riding at the tail 
end of a patent medicine wagon and 
beating the drum just as he had hoped 
he might do. 

Hamlin's Wizard Oil troupe of min- 
strels and musicians had passed through 
Greenfield and Riley went with them 
when they left. It has been said that he 
ran away with a circus but this statement 
has been based on his experience with the 
Wizard Oil entertainers. 

Riley himself says that he u slid out of 
the office" to leave with the minstrels. 
Whether this is to be construed into a 




SA i < 




^ 




How pbasant the journey down the old dusty 
lane." 







n 



h 



runaway is left to the reader. At the 
time he was in the midst of the conflict 
between his own desire not to read law 
and his father's desire that he should. He 
left an open Blackstone when he deserted 
the law office for the drum at the tail end 
of the minstrel wagon* 

It is undoubtedly true that Riley en- 
joyed the life with these traveling musi- 
cians. He was with them one season. 
As he says he staid with the band " until 
all the county fairs were over. Then he 
found himself in a strange state among 
strangers and he thought it would be fine 
to pay a flying visit home. But he 
couldn't fly," 

He managed to accomplish the return 
home and soon afterwards another op- 
portunity for a roving life was presented, 
this being connected with the sign paint- 
ing industry. Of his own ability in this 
art Riley has said, referring to himself in 
the third person. 

" He could paint a sign — or a house — 
or a tin roof — if some one else would f ur- 



r 



*\ 










Sign painted by Riley now in use in a 
Greenfield bank. 

nish him with the paint — and one of 
Riley's hand-painted fences was a rapture 
to the most exacting; eye/' 

In this budding industry James 
McClannahan was one of the brightest 
stars* We have Riley's word for this and 
the young man acquired his admiration 
in two seasons of tramping with the ad- 
vertising genius* 

The u blind sign painter " episode is 
explained in the following manner, al- 
though Riley in submitting to interviews 
on the subject of his life's exploits has re- 
ferred to the matter but seldom. 

McClannahan decided that if some 
novelty could be introduced in the sign 
painting line business would soon be rush- 
ing towards the inventors of it* He hit 
on the expedient of having the painting 
done by a blind man and Riley was to 
furnish the blindness* 

With a couple of ladders, their paint 
pots and brushes and other apparatus the 
two set forth in a wagon for a tour of In- 






v=^ 







diana, Michigan and other nearby states. 
When a small town was reached McClan- 
nahan descended to dicker with the mer- 
chants, explaining the value of having 
a sign neatly done at the front of their 
stores by a painter who could not see* By 
the time the arrangements had been made 
the word had spread abroad that the quiet 
young man sitting on the ladders in the 
wagon could not see but could paint signs 
without sight* 

An agreement having been reached, 
the ladders would be placed for the 
painter and Riley, practicing every mani- 
festation of blindness that he knew, 
would carefully ascend, and with elabor- 
ate manipulation, mark off the spaces he 
intended his letters to occupy* A crowd 
of several hundred would be collected by 
this time to watch the progress of the 
blind sign painter* 

In the due course of time the work 
would be done, to the admiration of the 
assemblage* Riley preserved the sem- 
blance of blindness until all the business 






i ! 





Main Street, Greenfield. 






e 



•■ 



s 




afforded by the town had been 
the company had left its borders. 

This ruse to gain business was aban- 
doned finally* McClannahan's ability to 
argue a dealer into the mood of having a 
sign painted was sufficient without the 
aid of the fictitious novelty* 

As actual labor the business was hard 
work — too hard work for one of Riley's 
build, as he has said himself* 

"I can still remember," he has said, 
44 standing on a ladder on the sunny side 
of one of the big barns and working in 
the heat until the perspiration ran down 
my face like rain and my arms seemed 
ready to break from weariness* You can 
have no idea of the physical labor of sign 
painting* Fences were not so bad as barns. 
On the latter we used to rig a temporary 
scaffolding, often using a farm wagon for 
the foundation and building the super- 
structure in the flimsiest manner possible*" 

McClannahan was a wonderful solic- 
itor, according to Riley* When the ad- 
vertising wagon came to a new town he 
would get one of the local papers and 
find the biggest advertisers* Then he 
would go to the business man and say: 

"You evidently are the most wide- 
awake man in this town* Now we have 
been painting advertisements on barns, 
fences and rocks for patent medicine firms 
and we know what we are saying when 
we tell you that such advertising is the 
most remunerative in the world, espe- 
cially because once paid for it lasts for 
years* Now there are eight roads lead- 
ing out of this town and we will put your 
ad. in artistic style on every one of the 
learns and fences for three miles out of 
^town for jug^ c^ciMnoney." 

^'he^bu^iness man^generally protested 
vigorously al the price rianied by fiJcClan- 




nahan but he in turn would draw out the 
county paper and prove by its own adver- 
tising: rates that the form of advertising 
he offered was cheaper and better. 

He always succeeded in the end, the 
most effective argument being the one 
that there would not be an inch of space 
left on any fence or barn near town for 
any of the business man's rivals to use for 
like purpose* Then the two had the task 
of securing the privileges from the farm- 
ers but there again McClannahan's tact 
stood them in good stead* He had a way 
of admiring the cows and horses and of 
presenting the housewife with a dress 
pattern and consent was obtained easily. 

Business grew rapidly and soon the 
two were employing a number of assist- 
ants. Riley also found time in each town 
to do window work for the merchants, 
being able to work rapidly and artistic- 
ally and at lower cost to the dealer than 
it would have been possible for them to 
obtain the work from local painters. 

If Riley ever had a trade it was this 
sign painting. If in the end he had been 
unsuccessful with his poems it is probable 
that he would have drifted back to it as 
he has confessed that he never was a 













newspaper man in any sense. Although 
afterwards connected with various papers 
always was in the capacity of verse 
writer. 

He might have attached himself to 
some sort or other of theatrical company 
as he had decided ability. This after- 
wards was displayed in his platform 
career as a reader of his own works* On 
such occasions the real value of his poetry 
gained an additional worth in the man- 
ner of its presentation to the audience* 

From sign painting Riley went to 
newspaper work* the writing of verses* 
advertisements and paragraphs for Green- 
fieldLand Anderson papers* All his work 
in this connection will be the subject of 
separate discussion in these pages. He 
did not win immediate honor — did not 
win recognition even after his poems had 
secured publication* 

It is said in Greenfield that Riley was 
known as an erratic employe* It is as- 
serted, with probably unintentional exag- 
geration* that he never continued in that 
work more than three weeks until he 
found his real work in life* 

A reflection of his boyish circus days, 
when the three quarts of pins were accu- 





OLD MASONIC HALL, 
Scene of Riley f s early theatrical efforts. 



/ 



Ml 



mulated, is found in his young manhood* 
Recollections of his performances in the 
old Masonic hall in Greenfield are still 
preserved. He is remembered as "Old 
Man Probst" in the "Golden Farmer" 
and as "Troubled Tom" in the "Child 
of Waterloo." 

The assertion is generally made in his 
native town that "Jim" Riley would 
have made another Mansfield if he had 
not taken to writing poetry ; so there is 
another probability entered in the inter- 
esting, if unprofitable, discussion of what 
the poet might have been if he had not 
been a poet. 

During unemployed days in Green- 
field Riley encountered acts of kindness 
on the part of his friends which he never 
forgot and which he well repaid in his 
days of prosperity. It is related that on 
one occasion his life was saved by Daniel 
Conwell. This is probably an exaggera- 
tion of the service rendered him, but it 
was such as to claim Riley's gratitude, 
and in later days Riley remembered it. 

There is many a man in Greenfield 
who has had occasion to be thankful to 
fate for granting him the opportunity of 
befriending the young poet. 

One incident of his life in early young 
manhood there which is still vividly re- 
membered by him. He and a chum were 
on the street late one evening when the 
father of the other young man found 
them and proceeded summarily to lock 
them up in a hotel room. During the 
night the citizens of Hancock county 
formed in a mob to lynch a negro. Riley 
and his chum made a rope of sheets and 
slid down from the window to see the 
hanging. The spectacle left a deep im- 
pression on the poet's mind and one which 
still retains force. 




"°£. 



,u 




"Tel now it's Fame *at 



writes your name* 



tt 




IILEY began writing during his 
childhood* His earliest rec- 
ollection of an attempt at 
versification goes back to a 
disappointment of childhood. 
One Valentine day came and found the 
little boy unprovided with pennies to buy 
the cards which all children exchanged* 

His brothers and sisters were spending 
their pennies for gaudy paste boards with 
doggerel verses and Riley determined he 
would send some if he had to make them. 
He drew pictures of the people to whom 
his valentines were to be sent and colored 
them. Then he wrote his own verses 
underneath the pictures. 

If one of the recipients had been en- 
dowed with prophetic power he would 






have saved the missive which the mails 
brought him and would be the possessor 
of Riley's first verses. 

One of the first poems for which he 
received money was that entitled " Des- 
tiny/' published by Donald G. Mitchell, 
editor of "Hearth and Home/* Riley 
has said that he was in the clouds when 
he recived a check from Mitchell — u Ike 
Marveli" — whom he knew by reputa- 
tion, and a note praising the verses which 
had been accepted* The effect on him 
was to start him immediately mailing 
every scrap of poetry he had to the 
"Hearth and Home/' 

His first success did not presage a sec- 
ond* The entire bundle was returned, 
the disappointment being sweetened by a 
letter from Mitchell telling the young 
poet that the work pleased, but could not 
be used, for the reason that the magazine 
was to be abandoned. 

"A most excellent reason/' as Riley 
said. 

At this time he was working on the 
Greenfield News, a weekly paper which 








The Morris Pierson homestead where Riley wrote 
some of his early verse. 





had been bought in \ 874 by William R. 
Hartpence, about the time Riley was 
busily engaged in sign painting. It was 
after the receipts from this industry dimin- 
ished that Riley abandoned it and turned 
to newspaper labor. Even in this latter 
occupation he clung to the advertising 
phase. 

He had been doing desultory work on 
the News for some time when the man- 
ager decided to put him in charge of the 
local field, which, being interpreted, means 
that he went out after small items and 
solicited advertisements. In the latter 
undertaking he was not the greatest suc- 
cess imaginable. A rival paper of older 
standing took the greater share of the 
small town's advertising away from him. 
Riley then fell back on his "poetic 
genius" and did the advertisements in 
verse, with better results, commercially, 
although the literary skeletons left in his 
closet in consequence of that business 
career are frightful. 

One skeleton arises now and shakes its 
bones to the following accompaniment: 

"Of all the stores the cheapest one 
" Is the grocery store of Carr & Son." 

Another advertisement began with: 
" Hootsy-toosy, I declare ! 
u See the purties everywhere." 

Riley went up and down Main street 
and up and down other streets with these 
jingles for meat men, shoe men, grocery 
men and others. It was a sad fate for a 
young man who was perfectly convinced 
by this time that he could write poetry, 
but who was unable to convince other 
people. 

Some of his contributions in the non- 
commercial line of poetry appeared occa- 
sionally in the "poet's corner" of the 






Where the cows slept on the cold, dewy grass/' 




•**}>'■ 






%1M 





News and of papers in neighboring: 
towns* The general opinion in Green- 
field* based largely on the advertising 
verses, was that Riley's poetry was 
" awful rot." The young poet's friends 
were not backward in telling him that 
such was the case* 

"Your verses certainly are awful. 
Jim/' said the editor of the rival paper 
to him one day. 

Riley afterwards numbered that man 
among his friends, but not at that par- 
ticular moment. 

"If your poetry is so good/' they 
would say to him. u why don't the maga- 
zines take it?" This was before "Des- 
tiny " had been published, and Riley had 
no way of answering his critics except by 
falling back on the defense which has 
been used for time immemorial u that the 
publishers didn't know good poetry." 

44 1 can write as good poems as good 
poets have written." Riley declared to his 
friends. He not only believed it. but he 










'Way back in the airly days." 






[ 













devised a unique plan to prove it* He 
decided to test his belief in himself by 
writing a poem in imitation of some 
famous poet and to palm this counter- 
feit off as a long-lost and newly discov- 
ered jem* 

At the time this decision was reached 
Riley had left the Greenfield News and 
was working on an Anderson, Ind«, paper. 
He chose Edgar Allen Poe, a choice which 
probably was made instinctively but none 
the less happily* In the poems of Riley 
and Poe there are resemblances which 
have been studied seriously by critics* 

Plans were laid carefully. Riley wrote 
to J. O. Henderson, proprietor of the Ko- 
komo, Ind*, Dispatch, explaining his pur- 
poses in the matter. Henderson entered 
heartily into the stratagem. 

On the fly leaf of a well worn copy 
of "Ainsworth's Latin Dictionary u Riley 
wrote 4 * Leonainie." 

"Leonainie— Angels named her ; 

"And they took the light 
44 Of laughing stars and framed her 
*' In a smile of white*" 

The Dispatch published the poem as 
a * find." It was alleged that the manu- 
script of a lost Poe poem had been found 
and the poem was given in evidence. 
The editor anticipated the uprising of 
sceptics and took precaution against this 
by announcing that the original could be 
seen if there were any doubt as to its 
authenticity. 

In writing the poem Riley had studied 
Poe's methods and had become convinced 
that he had a theory about the use of 
"M»s and "N" s and mellifluous vow- 
els the use of "which made his poetry 
music The success of his imitation was 
startling. Riley's prediction that he could 








The husky, rusty russel of the tassels of the corn. 








create a literary sensation was proved 
true* 

The poem was copied broadcast* It 
was studied by American and English 
reviewers and pronounced genuine* 

It never was Riley's intention to re- 
veal his connection with the hoax, and 
he has regarded it as a mistake to have 
begun his real work with the swindle* 

Of course* the editor having said that 
the manuscript might be seen* there was 
immediate call for it. Poe's biographer 
sent for it* 

"What shall we do?" asked Mr. 
Henderson. 

44 We made the poem ; we must make 
the manuscript*" said Riley* 

A f ac simile of Poe's handwriting was 
obtained from a magazine and the manu- 
script was produced. Even it passed mus- 
ter and helped confirm the authenticity 
of the poem, but finally the exposure 
came. At the same time Riley lost his 
position on the Anderson "Democrat," 




The Sugar Creek Ford. 




and the two events have been connected 
as proof that the one caused the other. 
It is not likely that the morals of a coun- 
try newspaper were violently offended 
because one of its employes palmed off a 
hoax on the literary world. However 
that may be, Riley was lost to country 
journalism soon after the episode. 

His next venture was in Indianap- 
olis. The real poet had come out of this 
attempt to prove his equality with the 
accepted men of letters, and it was begin- 
ning to be recognized that a man who 
could write well enough to deceive critics 
into believing he was Edgar Allen Poe 
might write well enough to be accepted 
as a poet himself. 

There had been a few before this, who, 
reading " What the Wind Said," published 
in J 877 in the Kokomo Dispatch, had 
been willing to grant it. 

44 Mr. Riley deserves to be considered 
a poet," said one reviewer when he read 
the following from this poem: 

"I muse today in a listless way, 
44 In the gleam of a summer land ; 

"I close my eyes as a lover may 

44 At the touch of his sweetheart's hand/' 

This was one of the first real poems 
of Riley, buried as it was in the columns 
of the little country newspaper. His first 
dialect poem, "The Farmer Dreamer,'' 
also had appeared by this time, the first 
of his work to secure recognition outside 
of his native state. 

With these experiences Riley went to 
Indianapolis, which has been his home 
ever since and the scene of his literary 
labor. E. B. Martindale, then proprietor 
of the Indianapolis Journal, is described 
by Riley as his " first literary patron." 

The poet's peculiar fate of getting 





'Timber thick enugh to sorto' shade the crick." 



t 



K 



S 



discharged from his positions followed 
after he had left the country towns 
>r the city. Halford; afterwards private 
secretary to President Harrison, had been 
lade managing; editor of the Journal 
shortly after Riley's appearance on its 
staff. He decided that a reduction in ex- 
penses was necessary, and that the offi- 
cial poet could leave without injury to the 
paper. He informed Riley of his decision 
and prospects were not bright. 

It happened that a political conven- 
tion was held in Indianapolis just at this 
time. One of the men nominated was a 
bigf fellow who never had made a speech 
in his life. When called on to acknowl- 
edge the nomination he arose, stammered, 
blushed and spluttered, finally blurting 
out: 

"The ticket you've nominated here 
today is going to win when the frost is 
on the pumpkin and the fodder's in the 
shock." 

The poem containing these lines had 
been published but a few days before, and 
the fact that it should have been seized 
on at a political convention, and that the 
applause of the crowd should show how 
largely it had been read, brought the 
Journal to see that Riley was a man 
whom it could not afford to lose. Hal- 
ford reconsidered his decision. 

Soon afterwards u The Old Swimmin' 
Hole and 'Leven More Poems " was pub- 
lished in book form, and Riley's fame 
was made. His days of fighting against 
a perverse fate were over. Recognition 
of his peculiar genius was given freely in 
all parts of the country. 

Each succeeding volume of his poems 
only increased the hold he had gained on 
the people. When the u Old Swimmin' 











The new swimming hole. 






t' 



fk 



L 



h 




Hole n was published in the Indianapolis 
Journal it was accompanied by a letter 
from " Benj. F.Johnson of Boone county," 
the alleged versifier. Riley chose to have 
his dialect work go out under the name 
of this fictitious, illiterate character. 

In the letter which went with the 
poem Mr. Boone explained that he was 
"no edjucated man," but that he had 
44 from childhood up tel old enugh to vote 
alius wrote more or less poetry," which 
had been written, he said, "from the 
hart out." 

The comment on the u Old Swimmin' 
Hole " was so favorable that 44 Benj. John- 
son of Boone " was moved to send another 
poem with another letter to the editor. 
The "Swimmin' Hole" was published 
in the Journal June J 7, 1882, Riley hav- 
ing been employed for some time by the 
paper before this poem appeared. 

Most of his work has been done for 
the Indianapolis Journal and afterwards 
gathered in book form. He had been a 
persistent writer when working in the 
face of discouragement. Now, with suc- 
cess attending him, he became prolific. 
Some of his critics have said that he 
wrote too much, and in doing so wrote 
of trivialities. They bewailed the fact 
that he chose subjects which did not lend 
themselves to dignified poetic treatment. 

It is this very fact which has placed 
Riley close to the people and has made 
him the most popular poet in the coun- 
try. His u Neighborly Poems," " Rhymes 
>f Childhood," "Green Fields and Run- 
ning Brooks" treat of intensely human 
subjects — subjects that have a part in the 
lives^pf the great mass-of the people* 




M 



i 



^. 







r> 



"Writ from the hart out" 



h 



n 




IILEY'S work has been called 
ephemeral because dialectic* 
Not all is of this character. 
The poet has shown that he 
can use the purest English 
and use it with as great effect as any liv- 
ing writer* No pen ever became famous 
simply because of dialect and no great 
work lost value in after years on account 
of it. 

The Hoosier dialect which Riley used 
in his poems is slowly disappearing, but 
without effect on the poems. They are 
understood and appreciated by those who 
never heard the dialect spoken and will 
be when all possibility of hearing it has 
passed out. 

His poems will live because they are 
genuine human documents that speak to 
people in language which they can under- 
stand. So long as there is a remembrance 



ir\ 









of the civil war/ there will be eyes which 
will grow moist when they read " Good- 
by Jim, Take Keer of Yourself," — the 
words spoken by the old Hoosier farmer 
too old to enlist, to his son, too young to 
go and yet willing. 

So will they when they read "Arma- 
zindy" — the story of the small Indiana 
girl who struggles to fill the place of her 
soldier father, killed by an accident com- 
ing home from the war, 

"Jes* a child, one minute— nex' 
"A woman grown, in all respec's 
"And intents and purposuz 
"'At's what Armazindy wuz." 

Riley intended this poem, which was 
placed in a collection with seventy others 
and published in J 894, to be a sort of 
Hoosieric epic, and such it is* 

Riley's poetry naturally divides itself 
into three classifications — dialect, child- 
hood and so-called serious poems* It can- 
not be an arbitrary division, as a number 
of poems may be shifted from one class 
to the other* Under dialect might be 
grouped those works which deal with the 
life of the Hoosier farmer. The Hoosier 





"With tangled tops whare dead leaves shakes.' 




<m?\ 



boy is the subject of the second. The 
third class are well illustrated by "That 
Old Sweetheart of Mine/' " The Song I 
Never Sing" and "The Voices." 

It may be believed easily that the poet 
himself would prefer that his name were 
made by the last class rather than the 
dialect poems and some of his best work 
has been done in a vein entirely free from 
humor. 

As a tender bit of sentiment, "That 
Old Sweetheart of Mine " is as delicate as 
anything in the language. Simplicity 
and directness were two qualities earnestly 
and systematically sought by Riley, and 
in this little poem he has proved his suc- 
cess in finding them. 

After Riley had been working for 
fifteen years in Indianapolis, he was per- 
suaded to give a reading of his poems in 
Greenfield. This little poem was one 
among those he chose for the occasion. 
Before beginning it he said to his towns- 
people : 

44 1 want you to fancy the speaker a 
gentleman in his study in the evening, 
smoking his pipe, and, as the smoke rolls 
up and away, conjuring up many pleas- 
ant memories, he talks about his old 
sweetheart." 

In that brief introduction, Riley did 
his own work an injustice. No one needs 
to be told anything of what the verses 
intend to convey. It all is written in them. 
Four lines give a complete description : 

"I can see the pink sunbonnet and the 
u Little checkered dress . 

" She wore when first I kissed her 
"Answered the caress — " 





There is a note of Longfellow in the 
44 Voices." Riley occasionally feigned the 
characteristics of other poets — not in imi- 




THOMAS CARR. 
"Tuba Tom" of the "New Band/' 



p 




•\v 



h 



H 



touch that recalled an- 
Such a touch has been 



tation, simply a 
other man's art, 
found in : 

44 Down in the night I hear them ; 

44 The voices— unknown— unguessed— 

44 That whisper, that lisp, and murmur, 

^ 4i And will not let me rest." 

The characteristics which Riley and 
Poe had in common have been mentioned. 
Without them it is possible that Riley 
would not have found it an easy matter 
to have deceived the country with "Leon- 
ainie." A study of this resemblance has 
been made in the case of Poe " Black 
Cat" and Riley "Tale of a Spider," 
/ One critic asserted that if a reader not 
familiar with either Poe or Riley were 
given the " Scenes from Politan n by the 
former and the u Flying Island n by the 
latter, he would pronounce both to be of 
the same author* u The same similarity 
in conception and treatment is found in 
"The Black Cat " by Poe and the u Tale 
of a Spider" by Riley* There is one 
fundamental difference* Poe destroys 
the eye of the cat with fiendish glee. 
Riley destroys an arm of the spider by 



r* 



K 




;.*. 



'And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all." 




m% 



( Al 

0W£ 



accident. 




The maimed cat and the 
maimed spider annoy the authors of their 
misfortune on earth after that. Then 
Poe burns the cat and Riley crushes the 
spider. 

There is an explanation, credited to 
Riley, which relates how he was prompted 
to adopt a ''homely" style of versification. 
It is said thas he had been away from 
home and was returning when an inspir- 
ation came to him. He looked up at the 
sky and decided that it was just as blue 
as that of Italy. The purling brooks 
44 purled n just the same in Indiana as they 
did in France. The trees were just as 
green as they were in England. It came 
to the poet that it was not necessary to 
get away from the plain people to find 
the poetry of life. 

There is greater likelihood that Riley's 
style was the result of a life study rather 
than the product of an inspiration. He 
himself has said that it resulted from his 
efforts to secure direct expression. As a 
child he too had an interest in home en- 
tertainments. He found objections to 
most of the standard selections adapted 
for such purposes then. He wanted a 
natural expression and he found this im- 
possible in most cases on account of the 
inverted construction used by the writers. 
To remedy matters he wrote his own 
verses but concealed the ownership from 
the audiences. He feared that the selec- 
tion, if known as his, would fail to meet 
appreciation. 

He wanted his characters to say 
things naturally, and it required hard 
work to bring this result. He has dis- 
claimed praise for invention. 

44 1 simply report," he has said. 

He has used the material stored away 
in his memory since boyhood and the 





'Tell of the old log house— about the loft and the 
puncheon floor — n 




The "New Band. 



material which he has gathered since his 
real work began* He never was in direct 
and daily contact with the farmers, hut 
yet in close enough association to have 
his mind impressed by their characteris- 
tics. Quaint and curious sayings have 
been reported to him by friends, and he 
has made it a system to go in and out 
among the farmers, getting their view- 
point and method of expression. 

The results of this study are shown in 
his dialect poems. The homely philos- 
ophy acquired in this way is well exem- 
plified in the u Thoughts fer the Discour- 
aged Farmer." 

This farmer has the usual forboding 
about the weather and the possibility of 
crops being ruined, but he looks at the 
fields and the sky. the birds and the 
beasts, and his philosophy is contained 
in the lines: 

u Oft a mortal be complaining when dumb animals 
rejoice ? " 

44 On the Banks o f Deer Creek n is an- 
other poem containing this philosophy of 
life — a picture of laziness and happiness 




^. 




'And rag weed and fennel and grass is as sweet as 
the scent of the lilies of Eden of old/' 









watching the snipes and killdees, wortcr 
bugs and snake feeders. 

"Soak yer hide in sunshine and waller in the 

shade — 
"Like the Good Book tells us — where there're none 

to make afraid/' 

A separate class under the dialect 
poems might be made, including those 
in which Riley treated subjects and places 
which were a part of his life in Green- 
field. "Jap Miller," for instance, is living 
near Greenfield now, still ** down at Mar- 
tinsville," just as he was when Riley 
wrote the poem. He still " talks you 
down on tariff." 

"He's the comicalist feller ever tilted back a cheer 
"And tuck a chaw of tobacker kinder like he 
didn't keer." 

They say in Greenfield that "Jap 
Miller aint worn $9 worth of clothes 
since that poem was written. Wants to 
stay jest like the character." 

There also is " I Want to Hear the 
Old Band Play," which Riley wrote after 
a return from one of his trips from Green- 
field when he found that the "old band" 
had been supplanted by a new organiza- 
tion, the "Adelphians," with better instru- 
ments and brighter uniforms. 
" The new band maybe beats it, but the old band's 

what I said — 
44 It alius 'peared to kind o' cord with somepin' in 

my head." 

No poem of Riley's is better known 
than the "Old Swimmin' Hole." He 
could not have chosen a theme which 
would find readier response in every 
man's heart than this, which pictures 
the delights of the cool river, spreading 
out a little to form a basin under the 
trees, reached by tramping down the 
dusty lane and across the fields. 

Theie is that quality in all the rural 



*&\ 





He jest natcherly pined, night and day, 
Fer a sight of the woods, ev a acre of ground 
'Whare the trees wasent all cleared away." 






v\ V 



poems of Riley which makes the reader 
live in their atmosphere. No one ever 
read "When the frost is on the pumpkin 
and the fodder's in the shock n without 
getting a breath of crisp Autumn that 
sent a tingling to the toes* 

Riley and Eugene Field have consid- 
erable in common in the:r child poems — 
Field being the dreamer and Riley the 
realist in this field* The little poem 
which describes the delights of the small 
boy taken for a visit to his grandmother 
is complete in its appreciation of boyish 
joys* 
" An' pa ist snuggles me 'tween his knees — 

44 An* I help hold the lines, 
44 An' peek out over the buffalo robe — 

"An* the "wind ist blows — an* the snow ist 
snows." 

There is the most delicate of pathos 
in the little poem of the boy with 44 cur- 
vature of the spine n — in the story of how 
he sits in the window and watches the 
children at play; how they pretend to 
fight the" Little Man*" 

44 They're thist in fun* you know, 'cause I got 
curv'ture of the spine." 

Riley also has used the negro dialect 
in the happiest manner. He has never 
been known in this class of work as he 
has been in the Hoosier dialect. "A Noon 
Lull n illustrates his ability in this line — 
the noon lull when the : 

44 'Possum in de 'tater patch ; 
44 Chicken hawk a-hangin' 
"Stiddy 'bove de stable lot* 
"An' carpet loom a-bangin' ! " 

In whatever line Riley has essayed to 
work he has adhered closely to his origi- 
nal purpose to seek directness and the 
things which are natural* And. being 
natural* his poems have taken the direct 
route to the hearts of the people. 







s 





"Fer forty years and bet- 
ter you have been a 
friend to me/' 




^HEN Riley came to pros- 
perity he purchased the 
home in Greenfield in 
which his family had 
lived — not the home in 
which he was born. This has been re- 
modeled and is used, but not by the poet 
himself* He has remained a bachelor. 

Time is doing; a great deal to remove 
the landmarks which are portrayed in 
his poems. Visitors still can find the old 
swimmingf hole. The town has gfrown 



-C-.4-- 






\ A f 



«v 






out towards it, but there still is a short 
walk across pastures to reach it* 

The old one has been abandoned. 
The boys who go swimming have found 
a larger basin a hundred yards from the 
one of Riley's day, but the Brandy wine 
is dwindling, and, sorrowful as it may 
seem to a lover of Riley's poetry, the 
boys of his native town soon may have 
no place for swimming. 

The national road, the great artery 
along which the nation pumped strength 
into the west, has become the Main street 
of Greenfield, as it has in many of the 
towns through which it passed. Electric 
cars have taken the place of the prairie 
schooners with which Riley was familiar 
in boyhood. 

Kingry's mill has disappeared and 
with it : 

"The old miller, with his cheer, 
"Leanin' at the winder sill; 
"Swoppin' lies an' pokin* fun, 
"An' jigglin* like his hoppers done/' 

Both the old band and the new band 
have gone. The old Masonic hall, the 
scene of many of Riley's amateur efforts 
in drama and recitation, stands at one 
corner in the town. 

Four miles out of the town is the 
Sugar Creek ford, associated with Arma- 
zindy. It is related that Riley refused to 
have this poem illustrated, although the 
publishers wanted a frontispiece. He pre- 
ferred that it be " plain readinV The 
difficulty was solved by a friend who 
happened to catch a snap shot of a coun- 
try girl, just such a girl in appearance as 
Armazindy might have been, coming 
across the stepping stones of the ford, 
steadying herself with a pole. 

Fate has dealt with kindlier hands to 
the characters. As has been said, the 







I! 



/ 




ELMER SWOPE, 
An early acquaintance of Riley. 








people who are in his books are or were 
living* They were the people whose 
characteristics he had studied, with whose 
ways and manners of speech he was 
familiar. 

It has been said that those who have 
not heard Riley recite his own poems 
have not appreciated them to their high- 
est* His ability as a reader has been 
proved* When he finally consented to 
appear before an audience in his native 
town the people came by the hundreds* 
packing the audience hall to hear him. 



?■%>. 



M 



It was a touching tribute to the esteem 
in which he is held in Greenfield. 

"Shucks, we don't really appreciate 
Riley," said a citizen there. u We all call 
him 'Jim/ and we all know him, and 
maybe we don't really know how great 
a poet he is. But there's one thing cer- 
tain. He doesn't get out a book that 
everybody here doesn't read." 

There has been great kindness shown 
on both sides, between Riley and his 
townspeople. In his younger days he 
found willing, helping friends among 
them. He in turn, now that he has 
reached prosperity, has not forgotten 
these friends. There is many a man in 
Greenfield who can tell of a ready hand 
held out in trouble. Riley has seen some 
of his old acquaintances through expen- 
sive sickness, has paid physicians' bills 
and has provided the necessities of life. 

Riley's lecturing tours of recent have 
not been numerous. Neither has his lit- 
erary activity been so great. As he still 
is a man in the flush of his genius, it 
may well be accepted that he has yet his 
work to do. He is not a burned-out fire 
which has displayed all the brilliance in- 
tended that it should. 

The work of the poet in the future 
may be depended on to rival and excel 
that which he has given the world in the 
past. He is not a poet that people for- 
get. He would not have to write another 
fine to remain constant in their hearts as 
the popular American poet. 

However, it is assured that this popu- 
larity will be increased by the future 
product of his pen. Riley will always 
be the poet of the man who remembers 
that once he was a boy; of the city 
dweller who remembers that once his life 
was in the country ; of the unfortunate 






who recall that once their lives were pros- 
perous; of the prosperous who recollect 
that once they were unhappy. 
4 * So friends of my barefooted days on the f arm, 

"Whether truant in city er not, 
"God prosper you same as he's prosperin' me, 
44 While your past haint despised er f ergot,'' 



END 








- / 



Y 








v * i • • »/■ / VV c- V * 

\ 



^ 



XV </> 






A 



-V 











">, 



% * 



V 



v^ 1 



.^- 



vO< 



^o^ 



\ v 






-v>% 






°i 



e 4 



l\- ■ " N '' ,1 <£ 



w 












•5. ,^ v 



'> 



tt.V 



«•> 



* 



} V S «•" "' > Q? 'r. 



